Psychiatric assessment to be requested for child sex predator

A sex offender who admitted to raping children in Surrey, Delta and Vancouver has yet to be sentenced for his crimes as lawyers wrangle over facts in the case.

On Tuesday in B.C. Supreme Court in Vancouver, Ibata Noric Hexamer's sentencing was adjourned until Feb. 12, when the Crown and defence are expected to submit an agreed statement of facts.

Those facts, the Crown said, will then be used to order a psychiatric assessment to determine whether Hexamer should be declared a long-term or dangerous offender – designations applied to sex offenders considered at high risk of re-offending.

Hexamer has been in jail since December 2010, when he was arrested after DNA evidence linked him to numerous attacks in the Lower Mainland.

Last August, he pleaded guilty to assaults involving children between 1995 and 2009.

The most recent took place in Surrey in 2009 when Hexamer approached a six-year-old girl who was walking near 139 Street and 62 Avenue with her older brother and his friend. Hexamer asked the group for directions, then grabbed the girl and took her into a nearby forest at knifepoint, ordering the boys to follow. He then sexually assaulted the girl.

In 2007, Hexamer approached to 14-year-old girls in North Delta to ask for directions, then threatened them with a knife and forced them into a wooded area where he sexually assaulted them.

The 1995 case involved a girl outside a school. Hexamer asked her for help finding his child, and then pulled the victim into a stairwell, where he assaulted her.

A dangerous offender may be sentenced to an indefinite prison term, while a long-term offender may be supervised up to 10 years after serving a jail term.

- with files from CBC

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